This argument is vulnerable to the reversal test. For lay people and scientists alike.
Evolution designed our brains with in-built self-deception mechanisms; it did not design those mechanisms to continue to operate optimally if the intelligence of the person concerned is artificially increased.
It is therefore reasonable to expect that increasing intelligence will, to some extent, disrupt our in-built self-deception.
Actually, now that I review this comment, I would replace this with “it is reasonable to expect that increasing intelligence will, to some extent, affect our in-built self-deception, but it may be either negative or positive”, we should look at evidence to see what actually happens.
It could also disrupt them in the wrong direction; there’s no particular reason to assume that becoming “smarter” won’t just make us better self-deceivers.
This is plausible in the individual case, but in a large group of people, each with randomly chosen cherished falsehoods, I claim that increasing the average intelligence parameter will increase the degree to which the group as a whole has true beliefs.
Cherished falsehoods are unlikely to be random. In groups that aren’t artificially selected at random from the entirety of humanity, error will tend to be correlated with others’.
There are also deep flaws in humanity as a whole, most especially on some issues.
Should we decide to believe in ghosts because most human beings share that belief, or should we rely on rational analysis and the accumulation of evidence (data derived directly from the phenomena in question, not other people’s opinions)?
It is therefore reasonable to expect that increasing intelligence will, to some extent, disrupt our in-built self-deception.
No. Your argument is specious. Evolution ‘designed’ us with all sorts of things ‘in mind’ that no longer apply. That doesn’t mean that any arbitrary aspect of our lives will have an influence if it’s changed on any other aspect. If the environmental factors / traits have no relationship with the trait we’re interested in, we have no initial reason to think that changing the conditions will affect the trait.
Consider the absurdity of taking your argumentative structure seriously:
“Nature designed us to have full heads of hair. Nature also gave us a sense of sight, which it did not design to operate optimally in hairless conditions. It is therefore reasonable to expect that shaving the head will, to some extent, disrupt our visual acuity.”
This criticism is valid if we think that the trait we vary is irrelevant to the effect we are considering.
But we have already established that intelligence is likely to affect our ability to self-deceive.
For example, we could fairly easily establish that inhaling large quantities of soot is likely to affect our lungs in some way, then apply this argument to get the conclusion that pollution is probably slightly harmful (with some small degree of certainty).
Essentially this argument says: if you perform a random intervention J that you have reason to believe will affect evolved system S, it will probably reduce the functioning of S, unless J was specifically designed to improve the functioning of S.
Stated like this I don’t find this style of argument unsound; smoking, pollution, obesity, etc are all cases in point.
This criticism is valid if we think that the trait we vary is irrelevant to the effect we are considering.
No, the criticism is valid if we have no reason to think that the traits will be causally linked. You’re making another logical fallacy—confusing two statements whose logical structure renders them non-equivalent.
(thinking trait is ~relevant) != ~(thinking trait is relevant)
Evolution designed our brains with in-built self-deception mechanisms; it did not design those mechanisms to continue to operate optimally if the intelligence of the person concerned is artificially increased. It is therefore reasonable to expect that increasing intelligence will, to some extent, disrupt our in-built self-deception.
Not if the original function of (verbal) “intelligence” was to improve our ability to deceive… and I strongly suspect this to be the case. After all, it doesn’t take a ton of (verbal) intelligence to hunt and gather.
If we evolved ever more complex ways of lying, then we must also have evolved ever more complex ways of detecting lies. It is highly plausible that increasing intelligence will increase both of these functions.
If we evolved ever more complex ways of lying, then we must also have evolved ever more complex ways of detecting lies.
Good point. Of course, that mechanism is for detecting other people’s lies, and there is some evidence that it’s specific to ideas and/or people you already disagree with or are suspicious of… meaning that increased intelligence doesn’t necessarily relate.
One of the central themes in the book I’m working on is that brains are much better at convincing themselves they’ve thought things through, when in actuality no real thinking has taken place at all.
Looking for problems with something you already believe is a good example of that: nobody does it until they have a good enough reason to actually think it through, as opposed to assuming they already did it, or not even noticing what it is they believe in the first place.
“Lying” and “being wrong” are not the same. Lying is intentionally communicating a non-truth with the intent to deceive.
And intelligence doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with our capacity to detect lies. You’re simply assuming your conclusion in a different form. Again.
Higher intelligence implies a greater capacity to work out the logical consequences of assertions and thus potentially detect inconsistencies between two assertions or an assertion and an action.
It doesn’t imply that people will have the drive to look for such contradictions, or that such a detected contradiction will be interpreted properly, nor does it imply that it will be useful at detecting lies without logical contradictions.
It seems highly reasonable that it is true that people who are able to get higher scores on IQ tests are both harder to fool and are, on any given question, more likely to believe the correct answer (this second claim is supported by the correlation between IQ and school exams). If you claim to doubt this, I think you’re just being deliberately awkward.
I suggest you read more Feynman, then. Or James Randi.
School exams, particularly in our country, measure the ability to memorize and retrieve information presented formally. They have no obvious relationship to the ability to evaluate the validity of arguments or derive truth.
They have no obvious relationship to the ability to evaluate the validity of arguments or derive truth.
I suspect that you are going too far in expecting a someone who can get 140 on an IQ test to, on average, be just as easy to fool into believing some abstract falsehood as someone who got 60 on that same IQ test. By the way, what’s your IQ?
This argument is vulnerable to the reversal test. For lay people and scientists alike.
Evolution designed our brains with in-built self-deception mechanisms; it did not design those mechanisms to continue to operate optimally if the intelligence of the person concerned is artificially increased.
Actually, now that I review this comment, I would replace this with “it is reasonable to expect that increasing intelligence will, to some extent, affect our in-built self-deception, but it may be either negative or positive”, we should look at evidence to see what actually happens.
It could also disrupt them in the wrong direction; there’s no particular reason to assume that becoming “smarter” won’t just make us better self-deceivers.
As Michael Shermer writes, “Smart people believe weird things because they are skilled at defending beliefs they arrived at for non-smart reasons.”
This is plausible in the individual case, but in a large group of people, each with randomly chosen cherished falsehoods, I claim that increasing the average intelligence parameter will increase the degree to which the group as a whole has true beliefs.
Cherished falsehoods are unlikely to be random. In groups that aren’t artificially selected at random from the entirety of humanity, error will tend to be correlated with others’.
There are also deep flaws in humanity as a whole, most especially on some issues.
Should we decide to believe in ghosts because most human beings share that belief, or should we rely on rational analysis and the accumulation of evidence (data derived directly from the phenomena in question, not other people’s opinions)?
No. Your argument is specious. Evolution ‘designed’ us with all sorts of things ‘in mind’ that no longer apply. That doesn’t mean that any arbitrary aspect of our lives will have an influence if it’s changed on any other aspect. If the environmental factors / traits have no relationship with the trait we’re interested in, we have no initial reason to think that changing the conditions will affect the trait.
Consider the absurdity of taking your argumentative structure seriously:
“Nature designed us to have full heads of hair. Nature also gave us a sense of sight, which it did not design to operate optimally in hairless conditions. It is therefore reasonable to expect that shaving the head will, to some extent, disrupt our visual acuity.”
This criticism is valid if we think that the trait we vary is irrelevant to the effect we are considering.
But we have already established that intelligence is likely to affect our ability to self-deceive.
For example, we could fairly easily establish that inhaling large quantities of soot is likely to affect our lungs in some way, then apply this argument to get the conclusion that pollution is probably slightly harmful (with some small degree of certainty).
Essentially this argument says: if you perform a random intervention J that you have reason to believe will affect evolved system S, it will probably reduce the functioning of S, unless J was specifically designed to improve the functioning of S.
Stated like this I don’t find this style of argument unsound; smoking, pollution, obesity, etc are all cases in point.
No, the criticism is valid if we have no reason to think that the traits will be causally linked. You’re making another logical fallacy—confusing two statements whose logical structure renders them non-equivalent.
(thinking trait is ~relevant) != ~(thinking trait is relevant)
see edited comment above
Not if the original function of (verbal) “intelligence” was to improve our ability to deceive… and I strongly suspect this to be the case. After all, it doesn’t take a ton of (verbal) intelligence to hunt and gather.
If we evolved ever more complex ways of lying, then we must also have evolved ever more complex ways of detecting lies. It is highly plausible that increasing intelligence will increase both of these functions.
Good point. Of course, that mechanism is for detecting other people’s lies, and there is some evidence that it’s specific to ideas and/or people you already disagree with or are suspicious of… meaning that increased intelligence doesn’t necessarily relate.
One of the central themes in the book I’m working on is that brains are much better at convincing themselves they’ve thought things through, when in actuality no real thinking has taken place at all.
Looking for problems with something you already believe is a good example of that: nobody does it until they have a good enough reason to actually think it through, as opposed to assuming they already did it, or not even noticing what it is they believe in the first place.
“Lying” and “being wrong” are not the same. Lying is intentionally communicating a non-truth with the intent to deceive.
And intelligence doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with our capacity to detect lies. You’re simply assuming your conclusion in a different form. Again.
Do you actually believe this?
Yep.
Higher intelligence implies a greater capacity to work out the logical consequences of assertions and thus potentially detect inconsistencies between two assertions or an assertion and an action.
It doesn’t imply that people will have the drive to look for such contradictions, or that such a detected contradiction will be interpreted properly, nor does it imply that it will be useful at detecting lies without logical contradictions.
It seems highly reasonable that it is true that people who are able to get higher scores on IQ tests are both harder to fool and are, on any given question, more likely to believe the correct answer (this second claim is supported by the correlation between IQ and school exams). If you claim to doubt this, I think you’re just being deliberately awkward.
I suggest you read more Feynman, then. Or James Randi.
School exams, particularly in our country, measure the ability to memorize and retrieve information presented formally. They have no obvious relationship to the ability to evaluate the validity of arguments or derive truth.
I suspect that you are going too far in expecting a someone who can get 140 on an IQ test to, on average, be just as easy to fool into believing some abstract falsehood as someone who got 60 on that same IQ test. By the way, what’s your IQ?
I don’t know, for a variety of reasons.